


she bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down

by newredshoes



Category: The Hollow Crown RPF
Genre: F/M, References to Shakespeare, actor tricks, goddammit percys, rehearsing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it helps to switch parts during rehearsals. Hear the lady sing in Welsh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down

**Author's Note:**

> So I got really obsessed, very suddenly, with the image of these two playing each other's parts. (I think it began with "Mary Crawley is totally the Bitch Boss John of Lancaster of Downton Abbey" and escalated from there.) Um. Yeah, I hate them a lot.
> 
> This thing is [Adiva](http://archiveofourown.org/users/adiva_calandia/works)'s fault, pretty much.

“No, come on, we’ll switch.”

Michelle’s eyebrows go up.

Joe spreads his hands. “Come on, didn’t you ever do this one in school?”

“Sure, but — do you know my part?”

“‘Course!” He grins. “Come on, from Glendower’s line.”

She starts to circle him. “You sure you want to trust me with this?”

“It’ll be good for us,” he says, still with a smirk, and now with a jarring RP accent.

Michelle has to laugh. She nods at the chair in the center of the cleared-out living room. “Go on, then.”

Joe glides to the chair and sits very properly, knees together. Michelle scratches her nose. Her expression becomes insolent, and a touch giddy. She strolls to Joe’s feet and drops onto the carpet.

His jaw goes tight. He looks mortified, but he smiles straight ahead, showing no teeth.

She reaches for his hand and tugs. “Come, Kate, thou’rt perfect in lying down.”

He frowns, and those sine wave eyebrows come together perfectly perturbed. “Where did you learn that?” he murmurs, to keep himself from smiling.

Michelle pulls. “Come, quick, quick! That I may lay my head in thy lap!”

Joe sighs, and steps gracefully over her legs. “Go, ye giddy goose.”

As soon as he’s down, she presses herself closer. He’s not used to being little spoon: he tenses, but only briefly. She runs her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, skimming the skin. “Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh,” she murmurs, right in his ear. “’Tis no marvel he is so humorous.”

Joe won’t smile. He looks away, as though listening. Michelle won’t have that. She leans against him. Her other hand snakes over his hip, over the rim of his jeans and under his shirt. “By’r Lady…” She dips one finger under his waistband. “He’s a good musician!”

He catches her hand. “Lie still, ye thief.” He catches her eye. “And hear the lady sing in Welsh.”

She slips free of him easily, and traces a line down his throat, over his Adam’s apple. “I’d rather hear Lady, my hound, howl in Irish.”

He rolls toward her; one leg drops between hers. “Wouldst thou have thy head broken?”

“No.” She grins, lets the syllable rasp in her throat.

He remembers he’s supposed to be more annoyed, that he must fight her. “Then lie and be still!”

Michelle walks her fingers up along his shoulder. “Neither.” Her hand slips under his arm, to hold him close by her chest. “’Tis a woman’s fault.”

“Now God help thee.” And she feels his words, the rumble of them, right through his ribcage.

It’s as easy and as natural as smiling to twine her fingers in his hair, to pull his head back just a little and expose his throat. “To the Welsh lady’s bed,” she growls, and kisses beneath the hard angle at his jaw.

He exhales sharply, but doesn’t push her off. “What’s that?”

“Peace!” She wraps one hand around the inside of his knee. They hold their positions, daring the other to look away. Michelle leans closer to his mouth. “She sings!”

There’s no call to break, there really isn’t. And Michelle’s hand works higher and higher up Joe’s thigh between the hungry kisses. And Joe, caught beneath her on the floor, reaches for her hair, tells her to look.

“Come, Kate,” he says, and now he’s Hotspur, now he’s Harry Percy on his back beneath his lady. “Come,” he asks. _“Sing.”_

“I will not sing,” she says, but she straddles him, she pushes one hand up beneath his t-shirt, she pulls him close, all warm and solid, and they kiss, as greedy as husband and wife, and she does.

**Author's Note:**

> Adiva: I WAS LOLING AND THEN IT GOT HOT  
> Me: I THINK YOU JUST DESCRIBED THEM ENTIRELY  
> Adiva: well, sometimes I'm crying and then it got hot or sometimes it got hot and then I'm crying
> 
> but mostly yes


End file.
